Today we kick off a new segment at WinBeta called Flashback Friday! Every Friday we’ll scour the web for an old Microsoft video, talk about it a little bit and embed it for watching! This time, we’re looking at BUILD 2011, where Microsoft talked about the Windows 8 Developer Preview for the first time.

BUILD 2011 was the first time developers (and the general public) got their hands on Windows 8. The Developer Preview was a somewhat basic version of Windows 8, it didn’t allow customization and still included core Windows 7 functions like a Start Button and even the Menu if you enabled it. The Start Screen also had a maximum of 5 tiles, not 6, which was very annoying for those with a large display.

Everyone who attended the conference was given a free Samsung Windows 8 tablet, which allowed them to develop apps for submitting to the Windows Store. While the Windows Store was closed on the Developer Preview, it was still available as a tile, just to tease us!

Now for a little bit of trivia: The first keynote was broadcasted on my birthday (September 13) and was also the day I decided to purchase my first touchscreen monitor. I haven’t gone back to a standard monitor since.